How long is your feedline? Given that your transmitter doesn't come up to full power (on CW) for about 1-2 ms, the electrical current can travel about 200-400 km in that time. (Assuming .66 velocity
Find a 100v, 150 uF cap. Disconnect leads 4 and 8 from the control box and put them across this cap. If the rotator turns, it is the motor capacitor. It is a frequent failure point for HAM rotators.
Come to think of it, isn't the reason the ARRL has really gone to bat on this topic (aside from the nuisance it poses), is because the FCC recently granted larger preemption on the part of certain sa
I have a set of traps that probably went to a 4-band vertical antenna sold by Hy-Gain. Each Trap is clearly labelled as an "INSU-TRAP" by Hy-Gain in Lincoln, NE. The traps have black plastic covers,
How about using a digital technique? I've seen wind direction indicators that drive a wheel made of transparent plastic. The wheel has several bands that are alternately dark and light. A bank of opt
With the help of some other hams on TowerTalk, we've positively identified these traps as belonging to the Hy-Gain 14-AV -- the predecessor to the 14-AVQ. This antenna design is about 45 years old. D
Yes, why not? Such a system isn't incredibly expensive. Black and White cameras are available for less than $100 US dollars. It has the advantage that you always know which direction your beam is poi
I don't mean to disagree with Tom, whom I have the highest respect for, but the math doesn't quite work out. If you have 1/4 wl radials, you create a circle or radius 1/4 wl, with a perimeter of pi/2
Wind the coil on a piece of 4" PVC pipe. Make the pipe a few inches longer than the coil. Use a U-bolt to hold the PVC pipe to the boom. This may not work so well in big-wind areas. The area of the P
Maybe it is because 1/4 waves are half as tall? Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL Mail: aa4lr@arrl.net Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!" -- Wilbur Wright, 1901 List Sponsored by AN W
Ed Gilbert's famous posting about coiled coax baluns mentions using a 4" form. It should not be a problem so long as a solid dielectric coax is used. Foam dielectric coax might suffer from some cente
How many turns? One problem with a coaxial balun is you don't want too many turns. You have to have enough turns to give sufficient inductive reactance at the lowest frequency, but too many turns act
I don't know why you'd want one for tower use, but these periodically go on sale over at HarborFreight.com for about $25-30.00 There are several airplane builders who use them to pull blind fasteners
Must you? K9AY was helping me mount my A3S a month ago. With Gary on the tower, I told him to align the boom with a neighbor's fence. I knew from the platt that the fence was within 3 degrees of Nort
Magnetic Deviation is defined as the error in the compass itself, due to its installation or other surrounding objects with metal fields. What they really mean is Magnetic Variation, which is the dif
I bought one like this last fall. Wouldn't turn. Turns out the motor capacitor had gone west. I replaced it with one in a small box mounted just outside the rotator. There's a couple of sites that of
I just tried it, the link works fine. Here's a higher-level link: <ftp://bama.sbc.edu/downloads/cde/> There's manuals for the Ham-M and Ham-II in this directory, plus those for the T2X, AR22A and oth
I didn't see any need to paint mine. I once had an AR22 that had seen far, far too many years outdoors. I sandblasted it, and it looked good as new for 8 years when I sold it. On my Ham-M did separat
25AG3 or 25AG2, I suppose. The AR22 would be plenty for just the A3S alone. I had one up for about 3 years, and it held a Butternut HF4B before that for 5 years. The colinear vertical doesn't have ne
I just tried it again, and it works great for me. I don't know that the problem is at your end. Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL Mail: aa4lr@arrl.net Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly